3 days in a row...do I win something?

Since we are still on holiday break and since the kids are at my in-laws until Jan 2, I had to make another recipe today.

Today I tried Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics Coq an Vin.  It is described as Beef Bourguignon with chicken.   Not knowing what Bourguignon means I had to look that up.  It is a dish simmered in red wine with onions and mushrooms.  Describes it quite well.  :)    This recipe is not even remotely healthy - packed full of bacon, wine and butter....but it is very yummy...

Bacon frying in olive oil.  This smelled so good I had to nibble on an orange ovation while cooking....

Then you take the bacon out and brown the chicken in the bacon fat.  This smelled good too prompting a "when is supper?" from my husband who was painting the stairwell in the basement.  He unhappily resigned himself to painting some more as I informed him that it would be at least an hour...

After this I cooked some carrots and onions in the leftover juices.  I then had to add Brandy and light a match to it to burn off the alcohol.  When it came down to it, I was too chicken.   I got DH to take a painting break and light the match while I snapped a picture.  He singed the hair of his wrist - oh the pains of cooking!!!

Incidently, did you know that corningware no longer says that its French White collection is stovetop safe?  I thought ours was, so I went on their site to make sure - apparently not.  Leaving the corningware site, I found a number of site with people using it on the stovetop so I thought I'd live dangerously.  For the first few minutes I cautiously stirred, waiting for the thing to explode around me. After that I forgot about that possibility and just enjoyed the fragrance of the cooking food.

I did take a shortcut on this recipe and did not use 2 3-4 pound chickens each cut into 8 serving pieces.  Instead I bought a flat of chicken thighs and used them.  I also used store-bought chicken stock instead of homemade.  It all came together in the end and was delicious!  I made some roasted potato wedges that I found here http://startcooking.com/blog/53/Roasting-Potatoes to go with it and they were super tasty too.

My husband happily stated that Coq au vin is the best thing he has eaten all year.  It took a good hour before I realized that today is January 1.  LOL!  He really did like it though. 

This IS super filling though and we lay like overstuffed bears on the couch watching Paranormal activity.